


This Divine Glass

by agent_of_weirdness



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: I don't think this is going to go romantic but like I said, I have no idea where this story is headed, No idea where it's going, Through the Looking Glass, nightmare-scape, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-07 02:17:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11613855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_of_weirdness/pseuds/agent_of_weirdness
Summary: There are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other. Hermione Granger and Severus Snape face death together and come out permanently changed by the experience.





	1. Prologue/Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've decided to post all the works in progress that I have languishing on my hard drive, in the hopes it will lead to me working on all of them more regularly. If you read my first story on AO3, M. Sue Smith and the Dark Wizard, then you know that I'm terrible about always having long, long hiatuses between updates. 
> 
> This one I have been working on the longest of all my stories. I got stuck on what happens between what's happened so far and what I know happens later, which is the same problem I have for everything I've been trying to write ever since I got started writing stories, about ten years ago.
> 
> Anyway, hope it's not a waste of your time seeing as it'll probably take me another ten years to get even close to finishing it.

They that love beyond the world, cannot by separated by it.

Death cannot kill, what never dies.

Nor can spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same divine principle; the root and record of their friendship.

If absence is not death, neither is theirs.

Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.

For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent.

In this divine glass, they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure.

This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.

 

                        —William Penn

                            _More Fruits of Solitude—Union of Friends_

 

Love, it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you,  
It will set you free;  
Be more like the man you were made to be.  
There is a design, an alignment, a cry  
Of my heart to see,  
The beauty of love as it was made to be.

 

—Mumford and Sons

                            _Sigh No More_

**Prologue**

 

“Hermione!”

            The room was shaking. What had happened? Had there been an explosion? Her ears were ringing. Some sort of magic gone awry? She could not remember.

            She tried to look around, and found that her eyes were closed. She was not standing on her feet, either, but was instead sprawled on the floor.

            The room was not shaking, she realized; someone was shaking her, and calling her name. Hermione groaned and tried to sit up and focus her eyes. She was quite dizzy, and the face of the girl who knelt next to her doubled and then trebled a few times, yet there was no mistaking that red hair.

            “Ginny,” she muttered through numb lips. “What happened?”

            “I don’t know, I didn’t see,” said Ginny, helping the older girl to her feet. “I just came around the corner and found you like this. Are you alright?”

            “I think so,” Hermione said, swaying slightly and squinting against the bright sunlight from the windows lining either side of the hall.

Sunlight? She frowned in confusion. For a moment her mind tried to tell her that the light was not right; she had a momentary vision of burning torches lining a stone corridor, and then another wave of vertigo hit her, scattering her thoughts. She put out a hand to steady herself, and the dizziness receded. What had she been thinking of? Torches and stone walls? But that was ridiculous. She was at school, not in some medieval castle.

            Hermione’s head throbbed painfully. “I don’t remember what happened though,” she admitted, but Ginny didn’t reply. Instead, she was warily watching something behind Hermione. Before Hermione could turn and look, she heard a soft, deep voice behind her.

            “Don’t trouble yourself about me, Miss Weasley. I assure you, I am fine,” the man said, climbing unsteadily to his feet, his lip curled in a sneer. He leaned against the wall for support and shook his head slightly, as if to clear it. “It seems that we crashed into one another, Miss Granger. With enough force to knock one another out, apparently.” He too squinted and raised a hand to block the light from shining into his eyes.

            “P-Professor Snape,” Hermione stammered. “I’m so sorry, sir! I must not have been watching where I was going, I was in such a rush—”

            “Yes, yes, Miss Granger,” he interrupted, waving his free hand dismissively while rubbing absently at his temple with the other. He looked around the hall with a puzzled frown. “I am at fault as well, although—” He broke off, staring at the wall blankly.

            Ginny and Hermione shared an uneasy glance. Snape did not stir, but continued to stand frozen and stare at the wall, his eyes slightly glazed. After a moment or two, Hermione tentatively cleared her throat.

            “Erm, Professor? Sir?”

            He blinked and wrenched his gaze back to look at her. Their eyes met for a moment, and Hermione felt another wave of disorientation and looked down, blinking in confusion. Snape seemed to recover himself, shaking his head slightly again. His face assumed its customary scowl, and he gestured impatiently at her, motioning her to his side.

            “Come along, Miss Granger, I must escort you to the nurse to make sure you are uninjured.” Then Snape turned to Ginny and smiled unpleasantly.

            “As for you, Miss Weasley, a demerit for wandering the halls without a pass after the tardy bell.” Ginny’s mouth fell open, and Hermione winced. Snape’s smile widened as Ginny took an indignant breath.

            “Unless you would like to make that demerit a detention?”

            Ginny paused, then let out her breath in a huff and closed her mouth.

“No? I thought not. Now run along to your lesson, or wherever you are supposed to be currently, and don’t dawdle.”

Ginny pressed her lips together in a thin line, spun on her heel, and stalked away stiff-legged, hands clenched in white-knuckled fists at her sides.

When she was gone, Hermione glanced at Snape cautiously from the corner of her eye. His hand had gone back to rubbing his temple, and he stared at the corner Ginny had disappeared around, frowning slightly. Suddenly he glanced at her, as if he had forgotten for a moment she was there, then turned and began striding quickly down the hall. Hermione hurried to catch up.

            “Keep up, Miss Granger,” he snapped irritably. As they rounded the corner she heard him mutter to himself, “I hope Poppy has some paracetamol. My head is killing me.”

 

************************

 

            Professor Albus Dumbledore pulled the curtains closed again behind him, then turned to look at the two figures lying on their sides in the bed before him with a heavy sigh. If not for the fact that they were fully clothed beneath the blankets draped over them, they might have looked like sleeping lovers. They faced one another, not touching, but close enough that their breath stirred each other’s hair. A long, delicate gold chain was looped around both of their necks; a large aquamarine crystal hanging pendant from the chain rested innocuously on the pillow between them. He stared at the crystal, stroking his long white beard, and sighed again.

            A matronly woman with grey hair and a stern mouth offset by kindly blue eyes, dressed in an old-fashioned, Victorian-style nursing uniform, slipped past the bed curtain, a tray laden with potion bottles in her hands, which she set down on the little table next to the bed. “Chin up, Headmaster,” she admonished over her shoulder, but as she fussed with the bottles her brow furrowed and the corners of her mouth turned down. The headmaster smiled at the nurse ruefully.

            “Forgive me, Poppy. My supply of optimism seems to be running low these days.” He flexed his curse-withered arm, or tried to; his blackened fingers gave a slight twitch in response. “Still, there is hope. If any have the strength to survive the curse that necklace holds, it is these two. And the fact that they are in its thrall together…I think they have a good chance of survival. Far better than if it fed upon either one alone, as it was intended to work.”

            The nurse sighed and turned around, a phial in one hand and a clean white cloth in the other. She tipped some of the potion onto the cloth and bent over the man, folding back the blanket and brushing his lank, greasy black hair aside to dab the potion-soaked cloth against the pulse point in his neck. “Invigorating Draught,” she explained, glancing briefly up at the headmaster as she gently swabbed more potion over the man’s lips. “I’ve no idea if it will do any good, but it can’t do any harm either. This curse, though…” She tutted and shook her head. “It’s a nasty piece of work.”

            “Indeed it is,” Dumbledore agreed gravely, stepping back to give room as Madam Pomfrey moved to attend to the teenage girl occupying the other side of the bed. “Yet as I said, it was never meant to ensnare two. I believe attempting to subjugate two minds will strain the enchantment to its breaking point. Especially two minds as clever and strong as these. They will surely resist its control.”

            “I’ve no doubt,” replied the matron. “But the question is not whether they are capable of breaking the enchantment and escaping, but whether they will manage to do so before the spell drains their lives away completely.” She brushed the unruly, curling brown locks away from the girl’s face tenderly and pulled the blanket back up to her shoulder.

            Dumbledore sighed again. They stood at the foot of the bed for a while, not speaking, and watched the still faces and slow breathing of the man and the girl as they slept on. The crystal sparkled in the low lamplight.

 

 

**Part 1 – Down the Rabbit Hole**

**“‘Well!’ thought Alice to herself. ‘After such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling downstairs!’”**

**– Lewis Carroll, _Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland_**

**Chapter 1**

 

            Hermione Granger sighed as she hoisted her bag over her shoulder and prepared to finally leave her last and least favorite class of the day. She’d had to take a new elective this term, and since she couldn’t draw or carry a tune and was dismal in PE, she’d been stuck with home economics.

            It was dreadful.

            As she crossed the threshold of the classroom and headed for the main foyer, her mood lightened a bit. It had been a very long week, this Friday longest of all, but it was over at last. The two days’ break ahead of her was not enough to completely lift the depression that had settled upon her of late, but it did cheer her somewhat.

            “Hermione!” a girl’s voice cried from down the hall behind her. Hermione stopped and waited patiently for her friend to catch up. Ginny grinned and slung an arm around Hermione as she began walking again, her eyes sparkling with good humour and anticipation of the weekend ahead.

            “Coming to Dean’s tonight? His parents are out of town,” Ginny said in a conspiratorial tone, waggling her eyebrows suggestively. Hermione sighed and shook her head in mock disapproval, but could not quite manage to suppress a smile.

            “I don’t know, Gin. I still haven’t finished that essay for Professor Flitwick,” she hedged. She hoped that Ginny would accept her excuse without too many questions. She was very tired. All week she had been sleeping poorly, and the last thing Hermione wanted was to socialize with a bunch of high-spirited and likely tipsy teenagers.

Ginny wasn’t buying it.

“Homework? On a _Friday night?_ ” she said, her voice rising as high as her eyebrows. “I mean, come on, Hermione. Even you don’t work that hard.” She frowned at her friend in sudden suspicion, as if for the first time really seeing Hermione’s wan complexion and the dark circles under her eyes. She seized her by the elbow and pulled her into a nearby stone alcove, pushing her down to sit on the bench squeezed into the small space.

“Are you feeling alright? Is something wrong?” asked Ginny, sitting down beside Hermione, her whole face scrunched with worry. “You look pretty terrible.”

Hermione sighed. “I’m fine, Ginny. Really. I’m just tired. I’ve been having a bit of trouble sleeping.”

“Are you having bad dreams?”

“No, not at all. It’s weird, really,” Hermione replied with a frown. “I fall asleep, but I keep waking up with this feeling, like I’ve forgotten something really important, or like something’s gone wrong. I have no idea what though. I lie awake all night trying to think of what it might be, but as far as I know, everything’s fine. But I still can’t get any rest,” she finished, her hands clenched in frustration.

Immediately, Ginny’s face cleared in relief. “Is that all? Why don’t you just take a sleeping pill then?”

Hermione’s frown deepened. She had expected Ginny to react with worry, but she hadn’t expected her to suggest self-medicating. “I don’t know, Ginny. Do you think it’s a good idea to take something when I don’t even know what’s causing my insomnia?”

“Here’s what I think,” Ginny said, looking Hermione directly in the eye. “I think you’re stressed about the A-levels. I think that you’re so stressed, you’re starting to lose sleep. And of course, losing sleep is making you feel even more stressed. I think that all you need is a few good nights’ rests. Ask your mum and dad, talk to Nurse Pomfrey, I’m sure they’ll all say the same thing.”

Hermione sighed. “Actually, when I mentioned it at breakfast this morning my mum and dad did say something similar. I suppose you’re right.”

“They don’t call you the smartest girl of our class for nothing,” Ginny teased, gently jostling her friend with her elbow. “You know what else I think? I think you ought to come to Dean’s tonight for a while. I know you’re tired,” she persisted when Hermione began shaking her head, “but I think it’ll be good for you to have some fun and forget about school for a bit. You don’t have to stay late, just come and enjoy yourself for a little while. What do you say, hmm?”

“Well…” Ginny’s face broke out into a wide grin as she sensed Hermione’s will crumbling, and Hermione smiled back despite herself. “I suppose a few hours at a party won’t kill me.”

“That’s the spirit! I’ll come by around nine and help you get ready, and then we can go together!”

The two girls walked together all the way to the main gates, where they parted ways. As she walked to the station where she would catch the tube back to her parents’ townhouse, Hermione found herself rubbing at her temples. Wonderful. Another stress migraine coming on.

Still, she felt a bit better, as if some of Ginny’s enthusiasm had rubbed off on her. She would try taking the sleep aid her mother had offered her tonight after she returned from Dean’s party. In the meantime, maybe she could take a paracetamol or two for her headache and wrap up her essay on William Penn’s epigrams for Professor Flitwick before Ginny came to poke and prod her into putting on makeup and a short skirt.

 

**********************************

 

Severus Snape sighed as he saw the time on the clock on his classroom wall, then turned to look out the window at the dark sky and sighed again bitterly. A Friday night, and here he was, still in the classroom. However, he had just finished the last of his grading, which meant that the rest of his weekend could be spent entirely avoiding anything that had to do with teaching.

Not that he had any plans. All he wanted to do was go back to his flat, have a stiff drink and a smoke, and try again to get some sleep. He knew it would probably be hopeless; the niggling feeling he had in the back of his mind, that something was wrong somehow, that he had forgotten about something it was crucial he remember immediately—it was still there and as strong as ever. And he could feel another migraine coming on. It was just a dull ache now, but the night was young; plenty of time for it to ripen into full-on agony.

He raked his hand through his long hair in frustration and grimaced at the greasiness of the ink-black strands. He didn’t need a mirror to know he looked like hell, although his reflection in the dark glass of the window confirmed that his exhaustion showed in his color, even more sallow and pale than usual, and the dark smudges under his eyes. Albus had pulled him aside this morning in the teachers’ workroom and expressed concern, advising him to take something to help him sleep. Severus was surprised that it had taken so long for the sharp-eyed headmaster to notice and stick his nose in with unsolicited advice. He had been doubly irritated when Minerva had stuck her head in just after the final bell to also express her concern for his health and give him her own expert opinion.

“Mark my words, young man. All you need is a good night’s sleep and you’ll be back to your regular dour, cranky self in no time,” his colleague had said as she left, obviously fighting a grin at his furious expression.

He scowled at his reflection in the window. Those busybodies. As if he hadn’t tried everything he knew already to relieve his recent insomnia. But nothing had worked; his restlessness had only worsened as the week progressed, and the headaches came with increasingly greater severity and frequency. He had tried sleeping remedies of increasing strength, to no effect; if anything, he slept less. The night before, he had lain awake all night, his head pounding in sickening agony, attempting to identify the reason for the overwhelming feeling of unease and anxiety that made his mouth dry and tied his stomach into knots, keeping him from sleep.

            Going back to his desk, he sat with a sigh, propping his elbows on the desk top and pressing his fingers into his temples. He could not remember ever feeling so tired. It felt as if he had not slept properly in a month. Severus frowned at his desk blotter. When had it begun, anyway? His head gave a particularly nasty throb and he winced.

            It was last Tuesday, he remembered suddenly, sitting up straight, ignoring the pain in his skull. What had happened? He tried to call forth the memory, but it stayed stubbornly just out of reach of his recall. He gave a little snarl of frustration, then let it go. Perhaps it would come later if he let it alone.

Really, it was a wonder he could remember anything, the way he was feeling, he thought to himself as he buttoned up his coat and wrapped his scarf round his neck, preparing for the chilly walk to his sad excuse for a car, and the equally chilly drive back to his sad excuse for a flat.

 

 

**********************************

 

            Hermione sat up in bed with a jolt, suppressing a cry of alarm. For a moment, she was completely bewildered; then she remembered. She had ended up leaving Dean’s after only a few hours; she had been so tired that it was all she could do not to fall asleep on Dean’s parents’ sofa. Harry had offered to give her a lift home, but the night was quite chilly and she hadn’t fancied riding on the back of his motorbike in the open air. She had intended to take the tube again, but the walking was so pleasant and refreshing that she ended up continuing all the way home. By the time she arrived, her mind felt clearer and calmer than it had been all week; she let herself into the dark house as quietly as she could and went directly upstairs to her bed.

            Her heart still pounding a little faster from her dream, Hermione glanced at her bedside clock. It was just past four in the morning, which meant she had managed to sleep for a whole three hours. She sighed and scrubbed at her face wearily with both hands.

            Lying back slowly against her pillow, Hermione attempted to remember what she had dreamed. It had not been a nightmare, exactly, but it had not been pleasant either. The details were rapidly drying up, but she thought she might have been searching for something, or trying to reach someone. There had been an overwhelming sense of alarm and haste; whatever she had been doing in her dream, it had been important, and there had been no time to lose. She fluffed her pillow with a little more force than strictly necessary and gave a huff of frustration. She closed her eyes in the vague hope that perhaps she might be able to dose off again and return to finish the dream, yet she knew it was pointless; no more sleep would come for her that night. After a while she opened her eyes again and stared out her window at the waning moon, waiting for the morning to finally come.

 

**********************************

 

            Severus jerked upright with a gasp, his heart racing. Disoriented, his eyes darted around. He had dozed off in his armchair, he realized. He grimaced at the sour taste of whisky in his mouth. Luckily he had put out his cigarette before dozing off. The book he’d been reading lay spine-up on the threadbare carpet next to his chair, pages sadly crumpled.

            Granger, he thought. That was what had happened on Tuesday that he had had such difficulty remembering. They had crashed into one another in the hall.

            And it was after that the headaches and the sleeplessness began.

            Severus sat back slowly in his chair, considering. Could that incident have anything to do with his current troubles? Was Granger involved in it somehow? Perhaps he ought to have a word with her. But about what? What could she possibly know about his insomnia? The idea was ridiculous.

            And yet, as he sat and continued to ponder, he felt more and more certain that speaking to Granger might help, somehow, and that sooner would be far better than later. But it would have to wait. Monday morning after the lesson would be soon enough, he thought. With that settled, Severus lifted himself reluctantly out of his chair with a grunt and retired to his bedroom, resigned to another restless night.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

 

            Whoever decided to hold chemistry lessons at eight in the morning was a sadistic and evil blighter, Hermione thought sourly as she lowered herself into her chair and slumped over the desk with a yawn. In the seat to her left, Ron was hunched over the weekend homework assignment, scribbling furiously. The seat on her right was still empty; Harry was running late again. She hoped he would get here soon; Professor Snape was looking particularly out of sorts, and even on a good day he was vicious to Harry.

Hermione found herself looking more closely at her teacher as he shut the classroom door with a snap and began digging in his briefcase, and she thought with surprise that he looked about as terrible as she felt. There were great dark circles under his eyes, and he was quite pale and drawn. That feeling that she had forgotten something important tickled again at the back of her mind, like a bizarre blend of _déjà vu_ and amnesia.

She continued to watch him as he sat to take attendance; the hand not occupied with checking off names went up to rub at his temple. Hermione sat up a little straighter. The _déjàmnesia_ sensation intensified. Something is off, she thought. Something is wrong, and getting wronger by the minute.

At that moment, Harry burst through the door, breaking her train of thought; he was three minutes past the tardy bell, his untidy dark hair sticking up even more than usual and his uniform tie askew. He couldn’t have made a more appealing target for Snape to vent his spleen on if he had tried. Hermione sighed.

Head down and shoulders hunched as if trying to become invisible, Harry headed for his seat. Snape let him get all the way across the room before he pounced.

“Late again, Mr. Potter. It seems that even though the headmaster allows you to ride that ridiculous motorbike of yours to school instead of walking or taking public transport like all your classmates, somehow you still cannot manage to get here on time. How disappointing. Perhaps early morning detention for the rest of the week will be able to cure you of that habit,” Snape drawled, rising and walking around to the front of his desk. “I’ll see you at seven tomorrow, and if you are late again, it will be two weeks. Do you understand, Potter?”

To his credit, Harry managed not to respond in kind to Snape’s mocking tone; he merely muttered, “Yes, sir,” and flopped into his seat, glowering. When Snape turned away and began writing on the board, Harry muttered to Hermione out of the corner of his mouth, “What did I ever do to deserve Snape first thing in the morning every Monday?”

She snorted softly in spite of herself and shook her head.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Pass your papers forward,” the surly professor snapped over his shoulder. The sound of students rummaging in their satchels and the rustle of papers being passed up to the front filled the classroom. Ron gave a little groan of despair and scribbled faster, trying to finish the last few problems; in the seat in front of him, Lavender Brown cleared her throat and held out her hand impatiently. He surrendered his paper to her with a sigh and shrugged at Hermione and Harry in defeat.

“If you had just bothered to work on it over the weekend…” Hermione scolded, but only half-heartedly. She was too tired to really work up the will to admonish Ron for his lazy study habits.

“Yeah, but I had so much better stuff to do. Harry let me take his bike ‘round for a ride, did I tell you?”

“I hope you wore a helmet.”

Ron grinned. Hermione rolled her eyes.

“Silence,” commanded Professor Snape as he turned back to face the class, his expression sour. “Who can state the Law of Conservation of Matter?”

Hermione’s hand went up automatically. Snape ignored her as usual. He looked around the room, scowling, until his eyes fell again on Harry.

“Potter? Care to grace us with an answer?”

“Erm. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, only, uh, moved around?”

“Clumsily stated, but essentially correct,” Snape said with a sneer. “And can you tell me how that applies to this?” he asked, gesturing at the chemical equation he had written on the blackboard. Harry shook his head, his expression turning mulish.

“I thought not. Today we begin stoichiometry, the study of the quantitative relationship between reactants and products in a chemical reaction. Now, a chemical equation, like this one, is a representation of what happens in a chemical reaction…”

Hermione stared at the surface of her desk without seeing it, no longer listening to Professor Snape’s lecture. She was distracted by a ringing in her ears that was growing steadily louder. Wincing as her head began to ache once more, she realized suddenly that the room had gone totally quiet. Looking up from her desk, she saw that Snape was no longer speaking, but instead staring blankly over the student’s heads, his hand absently rubbing at his temple again. She, Harry, and Ron looked at one another, nonplussed; Hermione was just opening her mouth to speak when the ringing suddenly rose to an ear-splitting shriek. She clapped her hands over her ears with a cry of pain and was vaguely aware that Snape was doing the same, before her head seemed to split open in white-hot agony; she fell out of her desk and onto the floor, clutching at her head and trying not to be sick.

As quickly as the pain had come, it passed; Hermione sat up shakily as Ron and Harry both jumped out of their seats and knelt next to her and the rest of their students stood up and craned their necks to see, whispering and muttering in excitement and alarm. Peering over Ron’s shoulder, she saw that Snape had fallen to his knees. His eyes met hers, and she saw a thin trickle of blood running from both nostrils of his large, hooked nose.

“Hermione, are you alright? What happened? Cripes, you’re bleeding!” cried Ron. Hermione swiped at her own upper lip and observed the blood smearing the back of her hand with a jolt of dismay.

“Help me up,” she said. Ron took her elbow as Harry pulled her to her feet. She felt a bit dizzy, but managed to stay upright. Meanwhile, Snape had regained his own feet without assistance, as no one had dared get close enough to offer him any.

“Potter, take Miss Granger to the nurse’s office,” he ordered. “No, Weasley, you can’t go,” he said irritably when Ron opened his mouth. “Your grades are abysmal enough without missing an entire theory lecture to hover around your girlfriend. I dare say she can do without you until next period.”

Ron flushed to the roots of his vivid hair, and Hermione felt her own face get a bit warm; but there was no time just now to waste on embarrassment.

“Excuse me, Professor Snape? Perhaps you ought to see Madam Pomfrey as well,” she said, looking him directly in the eye. He blinked and touched his lip, looked at the blood on his fingertips, then reached calmly into his pocket.

“I am fine, Miss Granger,” he said tonelessly as he wiped the blood from his fingers and face quickly and shoved the handkerchief back into his pocket without bothering to refold it.

Ron sat down, fuming. Harry put his arm around Hermione and steered her towards the classroom door as the rest of the class also settled back into their desks, whispering back and forth furiously. Hermione allowed herself to be led away, but she watched over her shoulder as Professor Snape glanced briefly at his notes and then continued his lecture, his face quite expressionless, seeming not to notice or care that no one was paying any attention to it. She watched him until the door closed behind them.

 

**********************************

 

“Well, I don’t know dear,” sighed Madam Pomfrey as she shined a light into each of Hermione’s eyes in turn. “It’s very strange. I can’t see a thing wrong with you. And you say you feel all right now?”

“Yes,” Hermione replied, blinking at the spots that danced across her vision. “Just before, I felt really terrible, but now I’m actually feeling better.”

“Well, if I hadn’t heard your story, I’d be giving you a clean bill of health. You look a little tired, but otherwise, perfectly healthy,” Madam Pomfrey said, shaking her head. “I think you ought to tell your parents to take you in for a check-up from your own doctor, just in case, but I’m inclined to think he’ll find nothing as well.”

Hermione frowned. “You really think I’m fine, Madam Pomfrey?” The matron shrugged and gave her a little smile.

“All signs point to yes, my dear. In fact, I think if you just rest here until the end of this period, you’ll be just fine to go to your next class.” She smiled and patted Hermione’s arm, then bustled away into the inner office, leaving Harry and Hermione alone together, she sitting on the padded examining table and he standing beside her.

“Well, that’s a relief then. I was afraid there might be something horribly wrong with you,” he said, grinning. She did not return his smile, but continued to frown after the nurse.

“I’m not so sure there isn’t,” she said quietly.

Harry frowned. “What do you mean, Hermione?”

“I mean, think about it, Harry. I haven’t been able to sleep, I’ve had terrible headaches, and now I collapse in class and have a nosebleed? Doesn’t that sound pretty serious to you? How could there possibly be _nothing_ wrong with me after all that?”

“Well, I don’t know…” he said slowly, frowning harder. “But didn’t you say that you feel better now?”

“Well, yes, but Harry…” She trailed off. The frown had cleared from his face, and he was glancing at his watch.

“I’m sorry, Hermione, but will you be alright if I leave you here? It’s only, if I hurry, I can sneak into the gym to see Ginny and walk her to her next class,” he said, looking at her pleadingly. Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes exaggeratedly, then flapped her hand at him, shooing him off, unable to quite suppress her smile.

“Thanks Hermione, you’re the best!” he cried over his shoulder as he darted out the door. Harry seemed convinced that she was fine, at any rate, she thought, hopping down from the table and smoothing the pleats of her uniform skirt back into place. Hermione, however, was not. And neither was Professor Snape, she felt certain; she had seen the look in his eyes when he saw that he was bleeding, before he had schooled his expression into impassivity.

He had been afraid. And if he was afraid, Hermione thought, then he probably had good cause to be. Snape’s office hour was at third period, she knew; perhaps if she played her cards right, she might be able to get him to tell her what that cause was, and if he had any idea why both of them had collapsed at the same moment.

The tricky part would be slipping away from the boys; they would surely ask questions if she skived off class to go speak to Snape, and she didn’t know if she would be able to answer them without causing a scene. She could talk to them later, outside of school, where Ron could swear all he liked without getting any demerits.

The bell rang, startling Hermione out of her thoughts. She rushed to her maths classroom, hoping Ron had thought to grab her bag.

 

 

**********************************

 

“I do not think it would be wise to try that again,” said Dumbledore.

“No, indeed not,” Madam Pomfrey replied archly, wiping away the blood from under her patients’ noses and smoothing the bedcovers, disarranged when the two had thrashed in pain, back into place.

“The curse repelled my efforts at Occlumency, but it was unable to block me completely. I was able to get a brief glimpse of what they are seeing. It appears the curse is projecting some sort of mental construct that they are trapped within, drawing upon their thoughts and memories. Like a shared delusion. They may not even realize what is happening,” he mused, staring down at the two people now sleeping quietly again.

“You mean they didn’t feel what just happened?”

“Oh no, they most certainly felt it. But they most likely are unaware that they are cursed. However, repelling me has cost the crystal a great deal of power. It is weakened. Perhaps they will be able to wake up from whatever dream they are having, and then they will have a chance at breaking the spell’s grip on their minds.”

He sighed deeply. “But they will have to do it on their own. If I attempt to interfere again, the strain could be fatal to both Severus and Miss Granger.”

Madam Pomfrey brushed the hair out of their faces gently. “How long would you say they have, Headmaster?”

“It has been two days now,” he said, glancing at the celestial bodies spinning around the face of his pocket watch before shutting it and tucking back it in his pocket. I’d say perhaps another two. Maybe even three. But no more than that.”

Madam Pomfrey sighed again and turned down the lamp.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

 

It seemed an interminable wait for the bell that signaled the end of second period. Hermione sat flicking her pencil back and forth and jiggling her foot impatiently, not even bothering to work on her problem set. The more she thought about the incident that morning, the more she remembered about the strangely similar incident the week before, and the more she seemed sure that it marked the beginning of—whatever it was that was happening to her. And to Professor Snape as well, it seemed.

She also grew more and more disturbed by the way she had forgotten all about waking up passed out on the floor in the hall along with her professor, not to mention the way that no one else seemed to be disturbed by it at all. Madam Pomfrey hadn’t even mentioned it when she had examined her today, Hermione realized.

There was something not on about the whole thing, and she was determined to get to the bottom of it as soon as possible.

“Hermione? You all right?” Ron said, nudging her gently with his elbow. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you daydream instead of doing your work in class,” he said teasingly, although she sensed genuine concern underneath his light tone. She stopped flicking her pencil and sat up straighter.

“Yes, I’m fine, I was just—” She nearly began to tell him what she had been thinking about, but something stopped her. She could not put her finger on exactly why, but for some reason, although it felt safe to tell Snape, she was strangely reluctant to talk with Ron about her suspicions. She quickly turned her lips up into the best imitation of a sincere smile she could muster.

“I was just thinking about what I’m going to do for my community service project in Citizenship,” Hermione finished glibly.

Ron groaned. “I’d forgotten about that. Mind if I tag along with whatever you’re doing?”

“All right then,” she said with a more genuine smile.

“Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger, you should be working, not talking,” Professor McGonagall said sternly, fixing them with a beady stare over the square, black frames perched on her narrow nose. Hermione and Ron hastily bent back over their work, though when she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, he smiled and winked. She grinned foolishly down at her maths problems, feeling her cheeks grow warm.

The bell rang at last; they gathered their things and went out into the hallway, where Harry was waiting to walk all together to their third period, botany with Professor Sprout. As they reached the door leading out to the greenhouse, Hermione paused to search through her bag.

“You two go on,” she said, not looking up. “I can’t find my gloves.”

“You can borrow mine, I’ve got two pair,” said Harry, holding the door open for her.

“No, I think I must have dropped them, I’ll just pop back and look for them,” she said over her shoulder as she turned back. Shrugging, Ron went through the door; Harry hesitated for a moment, then followed. “See you in a bit, then.”

Hermione walked slowly until Harry was out of sight, then hurried down the hall opposite the direction of her locker, towards the chemistry room and Snape’s office. She hesitated when she reached the door, took a deep breath, and knocked.

“Enter,” Professor Snape called. Her mouth went dry and she wiped the sudden dampness from her palms onto her skirt before turning the knob and stepping inside, shutting the door behind her. Professor Snape looked up from the paper he had been making notes on and raised an eyebrow.

“Miss Granger.”

“Hello sir,” she replied, resisting the urge to twist her fingers together.

“Is there something I can help you with?” he asked, slowly rising to his feet, his black eyes fixed on her face with an unreadable expression.

“I hope so,” she replied.

He looked at her impassively for a moment, and she almost expected him to sneer and show her the door. But instead he gestured to the chair in front of his desk.

“Perhaps you should have a seat then.”

As she sat down, Professor Snape retook his own seat; he folded his hands on top of the desk and leaned forward slightly, expectantly. All the time, his eyes stayed fixed on her intently. She met his eyes and found it difficult to look away; she was reminded of a bird being hypnotized by a snake and suppressed a shudder.

Severus observed the girl sitting in front of him with detachment. Her nervousness was clear, though she was doing her best to hide it; her fingers twitched slightly in her lap and she bit her lip, though as soon as his eyes went to her mouth she seemed to realize and force herself to stop. He thought he knew what she was here to ask and waited impassively for her to begin, but her first words surprised him.

“What were you afraid of, earlier this morning? When you saw the blood?”

In his surprise, he answered her, honestly. “I was thinking of my mother. She died of a brain tumor. Before, though, she used to get headaches. And nosebleeds.”

Why had he said that? He had not spoken of his mother in years, to anyone, let alone a nosy know-it-all student who chummed around with Potter. Yet he had answered her easily, without even thinking, before he was even aware of what he would say.

A thread of unease crept down his spine, though he of course kept his expression blank.

“I’m sorry sir. That’s terrible,” she said softly, and though Severus’s impulse was to say something cutting to stem the flow of her pity for him, something stopped him. Instead of retorting with sarcasm or an insult, he looked down at his hands.

“It was many years ago,” he said shortly.

They were both silent for a few moments.

“Well, sir, for what it’s worth, I don’t think you have a brain tumor. Not unless brain tumors are catching, anyway. I’ve been having headaches too.”

“Your having headaches at the same time as me does not preclude my having a brain tumor,” he replied. This time he did sneer, but Hermione ignored it and pressed on.

“No. But it is odd that we collapsed from terrible head pain at the exact same moment, don’t you think, sir?”

Severus felt his sneer become a scowl. The last thing he wanted was to boost the girl’s ego by admitting she was right about anything. Yet.

He remembered suddenly that he had intended to question Granger further, though he couldn’t remember why. This lapse in memory disturbed him far more than agreeing with the girl, irksome as the idea was.

Severus leaned forward further and fixed his eyes intently on the girl’s once more. “How have you been sleeping, Miss Granger?”

She blinked at his curtness, but answered, with a small, humorless smile. “Not well.”

“Can you remember when it began?”

“Now I can. I couldn’t before this morning. That’s very strange, isn’t it?”

He nodded slowly. He himself had remembered for a short time late Friday night, but had forgotten again by the next day. But now he once more was able to remember exactly when this trouble began.

“The Tuesday before last,” Hermione said, as if she had followed his train of thought; he nearly started but of course did not. She was a teenage girl, not a mind reader.

 “Something happened to us that day,” she continued, her brow creased with a deep, thoughtful frown. “That part’s still fuzzy though; I remember that we’d fallen down or something and lost consciousness, but I don’t remember how it happened. I remember feeling as though I had been in a terrible hurry, but not why or where I was headed either.”

“Yes.” He hesitated, continuing almost against his will—certainly against his better judgment, he thought a little sourly. Everything inside him revolted at the idea of confiding in the girl, but what choice did he have?

 “I also felt that something was wrong, but the more I thought about it, the more my head ached and the less I could identify what exactly was wrong,” he added reluctantly.

Hermione leaned forward, nodding her head. Her eyes did meet his then, lit with something fierce and intent; the set of her mouth was grim.

 “That’s exactly how I felt too. And it’s more than just us not being able to remember. Madam Pomfrey didn’t even mention it this morning when I told her about how I’ve been feeling, even though she saw to me right after it happened. And Ginny too; she was the one who found us, but she doesn’t seem worried and hasn’t even brought it up. It’s almost as though everyone has just dismissed it, like it never even happened at all.”

They stared at one another, speechless, the implications of what Hermione had just said poised over them like a heavy object about to fall.

“What is happening to us, sir?” Hermione finally said. Her voice trembled just slightly.

“I do not know,” Snape replied, face darkening, “But I intend to find out, Miss Granger, I assure you.”

Although he knew his tone and expression were less than comforting (to put it charitably), Severus observed that some of the tension went out of her at his words; she seemed to take comfort from his promise, though her face was still quite pale and solemn.

“How? Is there any way I can help?” she asked. He opened his mouth, intending to tell her no, but something in her wide brown eyes stopped him. He could not remember the last time someone had held eye contact with him this long. Most people tended to become uncomfortable and avoid his gaze after only a few moments, but Granger did not seem to mind it; or if she did, she was hiding it exceedingly well.

“Have you any place you must be after school today?” he asked finally. She shook your head.

“Meet me here after final bell. If anyone asks, tell them I’ve given you detention after school today for skiving off third period,” he said dryly. Hermione nodded, looking a trifle sheepish.

“And don’t mention what we’ve discussed to anyone else. I have a feeling that it would be better kept to ourselves,” he added, frowning. He had no concrete reason for thinking so, yet he felt it strongly all the same. The same way he had felt that he ought to speak to Granger before, he realized.

He did not like it, this sensation of being blindly led by his instincts; he trusted them implicitly, and yet he was used to having logic and fact to support them.

“Yes, sir,” Granger replied readily, standing. At the door, she paused and turned. “Thank you, sir.” He inclined his head in acknowledgement, and she shut the door softly behind her. Severus stared at the door unseeingly for a long while after she had left, wondering where Granger’s apparent faith in him stemmed from, and if it would prove justified.

 

**********************************

 

Harry and Ron sat next to Hermione’s side of the bed silently, their eyes occasionally drifting away from her to the other figure in the bed and then back again to their friend. Madam Pomfrey had been reluctant to allow them to visit, but Harry had asked for permission directly from the Headmaster, so she had retreated to her office after drawing back the curtain and conjuring up a pair of chairs.

Ron shifted uneasily in his chair and finally spoke. “Shouldn’t they be in St. Mungo’s?”

Harry shook his head slightly. “Dumbledore said that St. Mungo’s wouldn’t be able to do any more than Madam Pomfrey has, and he wanted them here where he could keep an eye on them,” he replied.

“Do you think…” Ron trailed off, then started again. “Do you think we ought to write to her mum and dad?”

“Not yet,” said Harry quietly. “Not until we’ve got something to tell them. We don’t know how much they already know.”

“Not much, I’d guess,” said Ron, fiddling with the edge of the bedspread for a moment and then dropping it. “It’s like Dean said that one time, isn’t it? It’d be stupid to tell them the truth about what’s been happening in our world lately. They’d have wanted to stop her from coming back to Hogwarts if she even told them half of it. Though I suppose there’s nothing they can do, now she’s of age.”

“She’s not yet, in the Muggle world,” Harry reminded him, “but I guess it doesn’t matter. I’d like to see anybody try to stop Hermione from doing something she wanted to do.”

They both smiled a little. Ron’s eyes went back to Hermione’s face, and his smile slipped away.

“It’s my fault. I was supposed to be there with her.”

“It’s not,” Harry said quickly. Ron shook his head.

“She’s going to be all right, Ron,” Harry said firmly. “You heard what Dumbledore said. Hermione’s got a really strong will. And we both know Snape’s too much of a bastard to die so easily.”

“Too right,” said Ron, but he still looked uneasy. “Why’d it have to be Snape, of all people?” he burst out suddenly. “I mean, he doesn’t hate her as much as he hates you, but still. Dumbledore said that if they both work together they can probably break the curse, but what if they can’t? What if he’s too much of a bastard to get along with, what’ll happen to Hermione then?”

Harry sighed and shook his head. “We just have to hope Hermione finds a way. If anyone can, it’ll be her.”

Ron stared at Hermione’s pale, sleeping face.

“She’s going to be okay.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

 

That afternoon Hermione found herself again in front of Snape’s office door, feeling a strong sense of _déjà vu_ as she nervously wiped her damp palms on her skirt and lifted a hand to knock. Before she could, however, the door opened and Professor Snape stuck his head out. Spotting her, he quickly stepped out of his office, already wrapped up in his coat and scarf, and gestured for her to follow as he began striding down the hall. Hermione hurried to obey, trotting to keep up with his longer strides.

“We must hurry,” he explained, his eyes darting rapidly all around as if he expected someone to leap out from hiding and try to stop them. “I do not wish us to be seen together.”

“Oh. Why?”

He did not bother to answer. She thought she knew anyway; it was likely the same reason she had lied to Harry and Ron without hesitating when they had asked what had taken her so long that morning. Somehow it did not feel safe to tell the truth or to mention anything about what she had been experiencing in the last two weeks. She had no idea why she felt that way, yet the intuition was too strong to ignore, so she had told them that Professor Snape had caught her out in the hallway looking for her lost gloves and lectured her a while before assigning her detention for that evening. They had seemed satisfied with the explanation and as a bonus had been too distracted indignantly abusing Snape to ask any awkward questions.

He led them down the deserted hall and into a disused back stairwell. She watched in surprise as he went straight to the fire exit door and pushed it open before she could protest; no alarm sounded. He held open the door for her and smirked at her expression.

“The alarm is battery-operated, but the battery has been dead for years,” he explained. “One should always have a back exit. Just in case.” Hermione wondered why a secondary school chemistry professor would need to always be able to make a quick exit, but followed him out the door without saying anything. He led her along the brick outer wall of the school building for a little way, keeping close to the wall and out of sight of the windows above.

Snape reached the end of the wall and waited, standing in the sheltered corner between the wall they had followed and the wall of the west wing. “Do you really think this is necessary?” Hermione asked in a low voice when she caught up to him.

“You came to me asking for help,” he reminded her repressively. “If you do not like the way I do things, you are free to go your own way, but if you wish to continue with me, you will do what I say when I say to do it.”

“Yessir,” she replied, biting her tongue to keep in any smart comments. She knew it would take nothing less than her best possible behavior to stay in whatever good graces he had, and the last thing she wanted was to be left trying to sort this mystery out all on her own.

His eyes snapped to her face as if to gauge her sincerity; his expression was unreadable, but he must have been satisfied with what he saw, because he gestured to a car, an ancient banger liberally spattered with rust, in the corner of the car park closest to where they stood. It was an out-of-the-way part of the car park which wrapped slightly around the school building, a handful of spaces partially hidden from the rest by the outer wall of the gymnasium. Without going through the fire exit as they had done, it would be a long walk from this corner to the rear entrance. No other cars were parked nearby.

“I moved it over here during lunch,” Snape said, as if he sensed her train of thought.

They walked quickly to the car, Snape, flicking his eyes all around warily once more. He unlocked the door and folded himself inside, reaching over to pop the lock on the passenger door. Hermione hastily got in. As she buckled her safety belt, she noticed that despite the beat-up exterior, the inside of the professor’s car was completely spotless, not a bit of rubbish or clutter or even dust to be seen.

“I apologize; there is no heating,” Snape said as he turned the key in the ignition; the engine whined a bit before turning over, its sound quieter than Hermione had expected and punctuated with an irregular thrum.

“That’s all right, sir; it’s not that cold.” She was glad for the thick sweater under her uniform blazer, however, and pulled the cuffs down furtively to cover her chilled fingers.

Snape backed out of the space and turned the car in the direction of the driveway leading out of the park. Hermione glanced down to adjust her bag between her feet.

“Duck down,” he said sharply, and Hermione immediately bent so that her head was below the dashboard, her heart in her mouth. From the corner of her eye she saw Snape lift a hand in acknowledgement to someone, a slightly sour look on his face. She felt the car turn and accelerate as they left the park. Snape glanced down at her. “You can sit up now.”

“Who was it?” she asked, patting her hair back down and tucking it behind both ears.

“McGonagall,” he replied distractedly, looking to see if the way was clear before turning out into the street and heading south.

Hermione leaned back and looked out her window as the school passed into the distance, thinking about what a strange turn the day had taken to find her hiding from her favorite professor to sneak off and investigate a mystery with her least favorite one.

 _Well, not the least favorite ever_ , she amended, thinking of the etiquette and home economics instructor, Professor Trelawney.

“Where are we going, sir?” Hermione asked after a while. They were heading to a part of town Hermione had seldom been to before. The professor did not respond for so long, Hermione thought he must not have heard and was just about to ask again before he spoke.

“My flat.” He was gripping the steering wheel hard enough to turn his knuckles white. Hermione decided to save all further questions and comments until they had arrived at their destination; perhaps by then Snape would not be quite so tense.

She turned back to look out the window at the buildings they passed, mostly houses and apartments interspersed with a few shops and cafés. Now that she thought about it, she felt rather tense herself. She was suddenly glad that Snape had insisted on the precaution of secrecy. It was not exactly normal to visit a professor’s home, especially one of the opposite sex.

Was that why she was nervous, the possibility of scandal? She thought not. Something else was going on here; something far more dangerous than the appearance of impropriety with a teacher. The feeling of having forgotten something of dire importance which had plagued her for the past two weeks was more intense than ever.

Hermione was diverted from her thoughts by the sensation of the car slowing as Snape turned into a rather shabby-looking block of flats. They came to a stop in front of the farthest building and parked. She reached to open the door, but the door handle stubbornly refused to budge.

“The latch is broken. Wait a moment.” Professor Snape got out of the car and came around to her side, opening the door and holding it open for her as she climbed out, smoothing her skirt and settling the straps of her bag back over her shoulders.

He locked the door and she followed him up a flight of metal stairs to the first story. He stopped in front of a black door with several locks and the number 28 on it in tarnished brass; he rapidly unlocked it and gestured her to step inside first.

Snape relocked the door and threw the bolt for good measure. He glanced briefly at Hermione as he removed his coat and scarf and hung them on a hook next to the door.

“Would you care for some tea?” he asked brusquely.

Taking off her own blazer, Hermione understood suddenly that he was embarrassed by his shabby car and equally shabby flat, although she wasn’t quite sure how she understood this; he certainly gave no indication of it in his tone or his body language, yet she was as certain as if it were her own emotion instead of his.

“Tea would be lovely, thank you, sir,” she said with a warm smile.

As she followed him through the sitting area and into the kitchenette, Hermione thought that he really had nothing to be embarrassed about; like his car, although the exterior was rather shabby, the interior of his flat was neat as a pin. His furniture was obviously old, but well kept, and almost every available wall space was covered with bookshelves, crammed to capacity. The light from the elegant, antique ceiling fixture was supplemented by a pair of mismatched old-fashioned table lamps, and the graying, threadbare carpet was mostly hidden beneath a very nice Oriental-style rug. Hermione sniffed and thought she could detect a slight, not unpleasant whiff of tobacco smoke.

The tiny square of linoleum covering the kitchenette floor was cracked and faded, but every surface was sparklingly clean, and the cupboards freshly painted a warm white. She found the effect quite cozy and pleasant and nearly opened her mouth to say something to that effect, but thought better of it; he might not take it as a sincere compliment.

“Please have a seat,” he said, busying himself with putting on the kettle. Hermione pulled out a chair from around the Formica-topped table and sat, blinking slightly. She didn’t think Snape had ever said the word “please” in her hearing before, at least not without detectable sarcasm; he tended to phrase requests as commands.

Once he had finished laying out the tea things, Professor Snape pulled out the chair opposite Hermione and sat, his black eyes fixed on her unblinkingly. She ruthlessly repressed the urge to fidget and returned his gaze, although she could not quite master the impulse to blink nervously.

“So,” he said after a moment that seemed very long to her, drawing out the sound slightly. She waited for him to continue, but he merely continued to stare at her. She blinked again.

“Erm. Well. Where shall we begin, sir?” she asked tentatively.

“At the beginning, Miss Granger,” he said sardonically. “What can you remember about the Tuesday before last?”

She ignored his tone and thought carefully. “I remember waking up and getting ready for school, taking the tube, walking from the station to school. Then I had my morning lessons, and then…” She frowned and paused. She could remember going to lunch and then having her free period in the library doing revision and working on some homework, yet there was something odd about her memories. They seemed strangely flat and somehow lacking, as though—

Her head gave a sudden ugly throb of acute pain, like a giant stickpin stabbing into her brain. At the same moment, the teakettle began to emit its whistling scream. They both jerked in their chairs in surprise. Snape gave a little snort and got up to fix the tea.

When he had returned to the table with a cup for each of them, he found Miss Granger sitting and staring thoughtfully at the cupboards over his head without seeing them. He set her cup in front of her and she blinked and came back from her thoughts.

“Where was I? Oh, yes. I can remember going to lunch and then having part of my free period in the library, but then I just remember waking up in the hall with Ginny shaking me, and then you taking me to see Nurse Pomfrey. I guess I’m missing about half an hour of my memory of that afternoon,” she told him, but she seemed slightly distracted; there was a little frown line between her eyebrows, and she was rubbing her right temple absently as she stirred her tea and took a sip. Her eyes widened, and she looked down at the cup and then back at him, bemused.

“How did you know how I take my tea?”

The professor opened his mouth, and then closed it, nonplussed. “I have no idea,” he said. He had done it without any conscious thought, as assuredly as if he was fixing his own cup.

They stared at one another; Snape felt the hairs on the back of his neck and along his arms prickle.

“How is that possible?” the girl said finally, her voice a bit higher than normal. Snape shook his head slowly.

“Something very peculiar is going on here. I am certain it has to do with whatever occurred on that Tuesday. Can you remember anything else, anything at all?”

“I remember the rest of the day, although it’s sort of fuzzy; nothing else strange happened, except that I started to forget almost as soon as I left the nurse’s office about what had happened. By the time I got home, I had completely forgotten, and I didn’t think of it again until this morning.”

“It is similar for me,” he told her. “Although it seems that you can remember more of the day than I am able; my memory is blank from my office period until the incident in the hall. I cannot account for almost three hours of that day.”

He sipped thoughtfully at his own tea, then set it down. “This incident on Tuesday before last is the first thing. Next is the insomnia,” he declared. Miss Granger nodded.

“And that comes with this feeling like something’s wrong, like I forgot something really important and now something terrible is about to happen,” she added.

“Do you have any idea where that feeling originates?”

She shook her head. “Every time I try to think about it, it slips away. It gives me a headache, too.”

Snape stared intently into his cup, as if he thought he might find some answers in the murky tea dregs; then he turned the intense focus of his eyes back onto her; his gaze was an almost physical weight, she thought.

“Yes, the headaches. A more disturbing detail than those previously noted. Especially the one we shared today. I have never heard of two people experiencing an acute and sudden headache at the same exact moment.”

Hermione shook her head. “Neither have I. But speaking of disturbing, why is no one else much concerned about us collapsing, and twice now? Madam Pomfrey acted like it was nothing to worry about, and so did Ginny, and Harry and Ron. Doesn’t that seem really odd to you?”

“Everything about the situation seems odd to me,” Professor Snape replied dryly. He leaned forward slightly. “There is one more thing,” he said in a lower voice. “After I had arranged to meet with you, I felt an overwhelming imperative to keep our meeting as secret as possible. I felt, and still feel now, that it would be extremely dangerous, though I cannot say how or why, for anyone to know that we have talked, let alone what we talked of.”

Hermione felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of Snape’s tiny kitchen; her skin tingled as it broke out into gooseflesh all over her body. “Yes, I think you’re right.” She took another sip of tea to relieve the sudden dryness of her mouth. “It’s almost as though…”

“What, Miss Granger?” he snapped, watching her face with narrow eyes.

She shook her head and looked down at her cup instead of meeting his eye. “It sounds ridiculous. But I think there’s someone—or some _thing_ —that doesn’t want us to talk, because we might figure out what’s happening to us. And I can feel it.” She licked her lips and glanced at him. “Watching us. Listening. Waiting. ”

They sat in silence for a few moments. Severus toyed with his teaspoon, lost in his thoughts. He wanted to dismiss her notions outright as ridiculous. The only problem was that once she had said it, he was suddenly aware of it too, like a whisper from the depths of his lizard-brain, a warning that something was stalking him like prey.

He was normally paranoid, true, but just now he could hardly sit still for the urge to look over his shoulder, and his hands clenched on his knees, longing for a weapon. But he had gotten rid of his father’s gun long ago. And anyway, he had a feeling that a gun was the wrong sort of weapon for the danger that he—they—were currently facing.

If his intuitions could be trusted—and usually he placed great faith in them—then he could think of no course of action, no plan to proceed with that could possibly work. If only he had more information beyond vague intuition and suspicions! He ran a hand through his lank hair in frustration, willing himself to put aside the pain in his head and concentrate.

“You say you feel as though we are being watched,” he finally said slowly.

The corners of Snape’s mouth were turned down and his eyes were narrowed pensively on his teaspoon, and though he had addressed her, Hermione thought he was thinking aloud more than asking a question; she waited.

“Perhaps there is a way we can use that to our advantage,” he mused, finally looking up and meeting her curious look. “We need more information. It would seem that the only way to get any is to provoke a response from whatever entity is interfering with us.”

“And how do we do that, exactly, sir?”

“I think we already have, simply by meeting this way. We took all reasonable precautions to not be seen together, and yet…” He gave a little irritable twitch of his shoulders and scowled slightly. “I dislike relying solely on intuition, but I cannot ignore the impression I have that we have tipped our hand somehow. But if there is a response to our behavior—”

“Whoever it is will have tipped their hand as well,” Hermione finished, sitting up straight. “Yes! Brilliant!”

Professor Snape nearly smiled. The girl was quick, he had to give her that.

“So, we just wait?”

“I do not think we will have to wait long.”

The clock hanging over the stove chimed faintly, and they both glanced at it. “I should probably be getting home, sir,” said Hermione; he was surprised at how reluctant she sounded. He was even more surprised to detect a small measure of reluctance to part in himself. It had been…not unpleasant, spending time with Granger. He felt more at ease than he had felt in a long while.

“Come,” he said abruptly, standing up and pushing the thought aside. “I’ll drive you home.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

 

Looking back, Severus was not sure what exactly he had been expecting to happen, but it had most definitely not been _this_ , he thought as he slammed the door of his flat behind him; he instantly regretted the display of temper as the loud bang drove into his aching head like a spike. He stared unseeingly around the sitting room, reliving the scene that had just turned his life completely arse-over-teakettle.

He had been slightly on edge all morning, waiting for the proverbial sword he sensed hovering over his head to drop, but the drive to work had been uneventful, and he had just begun to think he was being ridiculous when he reached to unlock the door of his office and found that it was already open, and slightly ajar.

Feeling a horrible sense of foreboding, he pushed open the door. The headmaster was sitting in front of his desk; at the sound of the door opening he looked up, set aside the newspaper he had been perusing, and stood. His expression was unusually grave, his lips pressed into a stern, thin line in place of his usual genial smile.

“Severus,” he said, inclining his head slightly. “You and I must talk. I apologize for my rudeness in letting myself in.”

“Headmaster,” Severus said softly, seating himself behind his desk slowly. He disdained polite niceties himself, but if Albus had abandoned them the situation must be a grave one indeed. “What is it you wanted to talk about?”

Albus looked at him, his blue eyes piercing. “Did you bring a female student to your home last night?”

Severus sensed that the truth would be the best response, although not too much of it. “Yes, I did,” he replied calmly, keeping his face carefully blank and his body still.

“I see. And did you have sexual relations with this student in your home?”

Severus raised an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?” he said coldly, although he felt as though his heart had turned to lead in his chest.

“I take it that is a no?”

“Of course it is a no, Albus. Do you really think I would ever even look at a student in that way?”

Albus sighed. “I did not think so, before this morning. But a serious accusation has been made against you, and there is some very convincing evidence backing it up.” Reaching inside his suit jacket, he withdrew a number of glossy five-by-seven photographs and handed them to Severus.

He was not particularly surprised to see that they showed him opening his car door for Hermione Granger and leading her inside his flat. They were taken from a distance with a high-powered zoom lens, he guessed, since he had been certain that the car park in front of his building had been deserted save for them.

“This proves nothing,” said Severus dismissively, dropping them onto the desk. “I have already admitted to visiting with a student, but it was for a completely innocent purpose.”

“And what was that purpose, Severus, if you wouldn’t mind explaining?”

“Not at all,” he replied through gritted teeth, feeling his temper beginning to erode his veneer of polite calm. “Miss Granger is thinking of doing an extracurricular chemistry experiment over the winter break and trying to get her results published. For her CV, you know. I agreed to give her some assistance and brought her over to borrow some of my personal equipment and a few books,” he lied smoothly.

“The pictures are not all. I also received this,” continued Albus, laying a small cassette tape recorder on the desk. A note was taped to it; it read, “Want to hear how Granger _really_ gets those top marks?” in large, blocky letters. Albus pushed the play button.

Severus listened, his mouth dry. There was a sound like something had brushed against the recorder’s mic, then silence for a few beats. A female voice spoke; he recognized it as Granger’s.

“Is this the only way, Professor?”

“Yes,” replied a deep male voice; Severus realized with a nasty jolt that it was his own. He listened intently, transfixed with dread.

“And you swear that you’ll make sure I get the top mark?” the girl said, sounding very reluctant.

“Shut up and get on your knees, Granger,” the man ordered. Faint shuffling noises. “Open your mouth,” the man barked. A little gasp could be heard.

There was only the sound of the tape unspooling for a moment. Then the man on the tape gave a loud groan. “That’s right, you little slut,” the voice crooned. “Ah, fuck.”

Severus jabbed the stop button, cutting off the panting groans issuing from the recorder, his face twisted in disgust. “I do not know where this came from, but it is a fake. That never happened.”

“That is a possibility, I admit. But you must also admit it does sound very much like your voice, and Miss Granger’s,” said Dumbledore.

“It is a fabrication, Albus. Don’t tell me you actually believe this,” Severus said, standing indignantly, hands clenching into fists. Dumbledore stood as well, his expression solemn.

“I don’t wish to believe it, my boy. But I must look into this further.”

“Ask Miss Granger. She will tell you that nothing improper occurred between us, either last night or ever.”

“Miss Granger is no longer attending this school,” replied Dumbledore.

“What? Since when?” demanded Severus, alarmed.

“Since this morning, when her parents filed the withdrawal papers. Apparently they are moving to Australia within the week,” the headmaster told him, gathering up the photos and recorder and pocketing them once more. Severus stared at him, stunned.

“There will be a formal investigation into the nature of your relations with your female students, including Miss Granger. In the meantime, I must ask you to take a temporary leave of absence,” Dumbledore said. “Starting now, I’m afraid.” He reached out and laid a hand on Severus’s shoulder.

“I think you might also want to procure some legal representation,” he added gently. Severus jerked his arm away from Dumbledore’s touch with a snarl.

The trip back from the school to his flat was a blur. His head had begun to pound before he even left his office; by the time he had made it halfway home, he had a nasty migraine. Severus went into his bedroom and stripped off his teaching clothes without turning on the light. He slipped on his nightshirt and dropped facedown onto his bed with a muffled groan.

He had always hated teaching anyway, he thought, covering his head with his pillow.

 

**********************************

 

When Hermione awoke the next morning, she was disorientated; for a moment, she did not recognize her surroundings, as if she had been expecting to wake up somewhere else and had woken up here instead. But this was her bedroom, she thought, looking around her in confusion; where else would she have woken up?

A loud bang sounded from somewhere downstairs. Hermione threw back the covers and went to her door, alarmed. She thought of what Professor Snape had said the night before and took the stairs two at a time, hoping that whatever it was, it wasn’t dangerous for her parents, at least.

“Oh, good morning, darling,” said Hermione’s mother as Hermione padded into the sitting room in her stocking feet, looking around in bewilderment. All the pictures had been taken down from the walls, and her mother was seated on the floor, surrounded by cardboard boxes in varying states of fullness. “You’ll have to fix yourself something for breakfast, I’m afraid; I need to finish packing these boxes so I can get the rug sorted.”

“What’s going on, Mum?” Hermione had gotten more sleep the night before than she had been able to in a while, but not enough yet to wrap her brain around the sight of something so unexpected so early in the morning.

Her mother beamed up at her as she ripped off a long piece of cellophane tape to bind the box in front of her shut. “We’re moving!”

Her eyebrows shot up. “We are? Where?”

“Australia!” cried her father from the doorway behind her, his arms filled with a teetering stack of empty boxes. “Whoops! Sweetheart, could you grab some of these?”

Hermione took the top two boxes from him numbly. “Australia?” she repeated weakly. Her father beamed at her.

“That’s right! A chum of mine from uni has a practice out there, but he’s been looking to sell it and come back to the UK. He called me up last night and we got to chatting; one thing led to another, and I had an idea: why not switch practices with him? Your mother and I have always talked about moving to Australia, and this is the perfect opportunity, ready-made!”

Hermione gaped at him. “Just like that?” she said incredulously when the power of speech returned to her. “We’re just up and moving to Australia after a phone call?”

“I suppose it is all happening a bit fast, but don’t worry. You’re really going to love living in the land down under,” her father said, putting on a comically heavy Australian accent.

“But what about school? And my friends?” Hermione said shrilly, looking back and forth between them in dismay.

“You’ll make new ones, dear,” her mother said vaguely, ripping off another length of tape. “Phil, I’ve been thinking, maybe we should just put the furniture in storage. Shipping it overseas seems like such a fuss.”

“It’ll save us in the long run though, Jean,” her father said. Absorbed in their planning, they did not notice as Hermione walked out of the room and back upstairs in a daze.

 _Australia_. She could not wrap her head around it. Her parents might as well have expressed a sudden desire to move to Mars. She hadn’t even known that they _liked_ Australia!

Hermione came to an abrupt stop, one foot hovering in the air above the next step. Could this be the “response” Snape had been hoping to provoke? But how was that possible? What could have possibly caused her parents to suddenly want to move to another continent?

Hermione showered and dressed at top speed and flew out the door a whole half-hour earlier than normal, not even pausing to have any breakfast. She was walking down the street towards the tube station so fast she was nearly running, when she looked up at the corner and came to an abrupt halt.

Harry and Ron were there, standing next to Harry’s motorbike leaning on the lamppost and waiting for her.

“Oi, Hermione!” Ron called, hands shoved deep in his pockets. “Thought we’d walk with you to school, eh? Hurry up, it’s bloody freezing!”

Hermione walked closer, slowly. “This early? Shouldn’t you still be hitting snooze on your alarms and pretending it will only take you five minutes to get dressed?” she replied lightly, but she felt a strange sense of unease at their sudden appearance. Harry and Ron often walked home with her _from_ school, but they had never met her to walk her _to_ school before. Ron always said that her habit of early rising was indecent.

“We ended up pulling an all-nighter,” Harry said, tossing her his helmet. “Neville bet Ron that he couldn’t stay awake for three days straight. Five quid. I napped a bit, don’t worry,” he added, when Hermione didn’t put the helmet on.

“Don’t you think we’re all getting a bit big to ride the three of us together on this thing?” Hermione said, turning the helmet over in her hands without meeting Harry’s eye. She didn’t know why, but she didn’t want to go with them. Not at all.

“We can still manage,” Ron said dismissively. “Go on, Hermione, put it on,” he said over his shoulder as he swung his leg over the bike and sat behind Harry. “What are you waiting for?”

“I’m sorry, boys, I can’t. I have, ah, an errand. To run. But I’ll meet you at school,” she said, trying to sound casual despite the sudden shake in her voice. She tried to hand Harry back the helmet, but he wouldn’t take it.

“You’re going to meet _him_ , aren’t you,” he said, in a flat, angry voice.

“The teacher’s pet needs to run an _errand_ ,” Ron said with a sneer. “Is _that_ what they’re calling it these days?”

“Get on the bike, Hermione,” Harry said, and suddenly Hermione was afraid. She stepped back, dropping the helmet, and then bolted.

She heard the motorbike revving to life behind her and ducked into the alley between the townhouse and the druggist shop, hoping to lose them in the park down the other street. Hermione dropped her bag and sprinted as fast as she could, snagging a trash bin as she passed and throwing it behind her to slow them down as they roared after her into the alley.

She heard cursing but didn’t dare look back as she burst from the alley mouth and into the street, barely missing a lorry that honked indignantly as she darted across the street for the trees. She crouched down behind the widest trunk she could find and watched as Harry and Ron idled in front of the alley, uncertain, before heading off in the direction of school.

Hermione waited until she was sure they were gone before she left the cover of the trees and headed the opposite way, thinking that she would loop around down a back street towards the school. She started to run again, anxious to find Professor Snape and tell him what had transpired; perhaps he could make some sense of it, even provide some explanation for her parents’ and her best friends’ bizarre and frightening behavior.

Lost in thought, she had taken three turns before she realized that her feet were not taking her in the direction of school; instead, she was heading towards the block of flats in which Snape lived. She stopped abruptly in surprise.

Could Snape be not at the school, but still at home? Was she somehow sensing this? It seemed utterly mad, yet the more she pondered it, the more strongly she felt that she had been going in the correct direction.

After a moment longer of hesitation, she began walking again, still heading for Snape’s flat; under the circumstances, she felt a bit of skiving off was warranted.

Hermione walked down the narrow concrete portico that wrapped around Snape’s building, peering at the brass numbers until she came to the shabby and peeling door marked twenty-eight. She rapped loudly on the door and stood fidgeting impatiently as she waited for him to answer. Staring at the peephole, she thought she could hear a slight shuffling through the thin wood; a vivid picture bloomed in her mind of Snape on the other side, leaning forward to peer out the peephole suspiciously at her.

When he opened the door, his long hair rumpled and his mouth twisted into a fierce scowl, she was only mildly surprised to see that he was wearing the exact clothes that she had imagined him in—long, loose, grey shirt over black slacks. So many strange things had happened lately that this hardly even seemed odd in comparison.

“Go away,” he spat, face contorted with rage, and slammed the door in her stunned face.

She gaped in surprise at the shut door. Snape could be abrupt, even nasty, but she had thought they had reached a level of understanding the afternoon before, however queer a level it was.

“Professor, wait! Please, open the door!” she cried, hammering her fist on the wood hard enough to knock loose a brief shower of black paint chips. No response. She rattled the doorknob, then called again imploringly, “Sir!”

He cracked the door slightly and glared out at her through the narrow slit, dark eyes glittering. “What do you want? Come to gloat?”

“What are you talking about? What’s happened?” she said, her brow furrowed. “Can I please come in?” she said, glancing over her shoulder worriedly. She wasn’t sure if she was just paranoid because she was truant or if it was something else, but she felt horribly exposed standing on his doormat. Grudgingly he opened the door wider and she squeezed inside hastily before he could change his mind.

“What are you doing here then, Miss Granger?” he asked coldly, shutting the door with a snap.

“I was about to ask the same of you. I was headed to school, but I had a weird hunch that you were home, and I needed to see you right away. Why aren’t you at school, sir?”

“I am on temporary leave until further notice. But surely this is no surprise to you,” he sneered bitterly, still glaring at her, his hands clenched in fists.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, a hint of exasperation creeping into her tone. “Maybe you had better tell me what it is I’m supposed to have done that’s made you so angry, because I haven’t the foggiest. And what does it have to do with you taking a leave of absence?”

“I am not _taking leave_. I have been suspended,” he spat.

For the second time Hermione could only gape in astonishment. Snape’s scowl was black enough to curl her hair, if it were possible to make it any curlier. He twisted away from her and began to pace up and down the narrow sitting area, shoulders hunched and hands clenched into fists.

“When I arrived at the school this morning, the headmaster was waiting for me in my office. He had some photographs of the two of us in front of this building and a very… _suggestive_ …recording on cassette of a young woman that sounded like you and a man that sounded like myself. It was implied that I had brought you here in order for you to earn your chemistry mark on your knees,” he said in a low, silky voice, its calm tone belied by the twitch in his shoulders and his irate pacing.

Hermione could feel his rage, and underneath it, his mortification, like waves breaking over her, threatening to drown her. Her knees wobbled, and she sank weakly down onto his sofa, the blood draining from her face. “Oh.”

“Apparently, someone had delivered these items anonymously to the headmaster’s office,” he continued coldly, stopping his pacing to tower over her menacingly. “It was suggested that I take a leave of absence while the matter is investigated.”

Staring up at him in shock, she understood in a flash; he was not merely angry and upset, but also betrayed.

“You think _I_ had something to do with it?” she blurted loudly. “Why on earth would I—how could you think—what would I possibly gain from doing such a thing?” she spluttered, flabbergasted.

Snape frowned down at her, still furious, but also suddenly uncertain. She met his eye resolutely.

“I don’t know who sent Professor Dumbledore those things, but it wasn’t me. I had nothing to do with it,” she said firmly, not looking away. His eyes bored into hers, and she knew that, despite himself, he believed her; perhaps he could sense her sincerity the same way she seemed to sense what he was feeling. His hands unclenched; slowly, he sat down in the chair opposite her, his eyes fixed on her face.

“Well, at least now we know that we were right; we _are_ being watched,” Hermione said. “More importantly though, whoever is watching us has the power to totally derail our lives just to keep us from speaking. This morning I found out that my parents have decided to move to _Australia_.”

Snape had closed his eyes and was pinching the bridge of his nose as if his head hurt him, but at this he perked up slightly. “Yes, the headmaster mentioned that you have been withdrawn from school,” he told her.

Hermione made an indignant sound. “I can’t believe this is happening! Who decides overnight to uproot their whole lives and move to a completely different continent?” she cried. “They must have been convinced, or—or manipulated somehow, but _how_?”

“Perhaps the same entity that has framed me for taking advantage of a student has also found a way to blackmail your parents into leaving the country,” the professor suggested.

“My parents are _dentists_ ,” she said skeptically. “They’ve never done anything to be blackmailed _for_. Their idea of a wild night is finishing the bottle of wine they have with dinner instead of just having a glass each.”

“Could they have been bribed somehow?”

Hermione shook her head. “That’s not like them at all. But then, neither is making a split decision about something this huge. They’re very careful, sensible people, my parents. And that’s not all. I ran into Harry and Ron before I came here, and they were acting like they’d gone out of their heads too.” Hermione straightened. “Actually, they said something very weird. It was like they knew I was coming here. They said some cruel things about me being your teacher’s pet, too, like they knew about this thing with the cassette tape also.”

“Potter and Weasley being idiots? What tipped you off that there was something out of the ordinary, then?” Snape said nastily, stalking into the kitchenette and snatching up the tea kettle to fill it.

“Ha, yes, very funny. You weren’t there. Maybe Harry and Ron can be a little self-absorbed or even insensitive sometimes, but they’ve never spoken to me like that before. They never _would_ speak to me like that, ever. It makes no sense, it's like something out of a—ah!” She clutched her head suddenly as a spike of pain drove through it, scattering her thoughts.

“Are you alright, Miss Granger?”

“Yes, sir, I think so. My head hurt really badly for a moment, but it’s passed now,” she said, lowering her hands back into her lap. “What was I saying?”

Snape did not answer immediately; he was staring at her and frowning thoughtfully. “I’m not sure what you were about to say,” he said slowly after a moment.

“Ah well. It must not have been that important,” she said vaguely, rubbing her left temple.

Snape made a noncommittal noise. It struck him as a strange coincidence that she should be so distracted by a sudden pain in her head that she forgot what she was saying. He nearly opened his mouth to say so, when there was a knock on the door. They both froze, wide eyed.

“Expecting anyone?” Hermione whispered, her eyebrows raised. He shook his head, put a finger to his lips, and pointed at his bedroom door. She nodded in understanding and hid herself behind it, leaving it slightly ajar, as he went to answer the door.

She could not see the front door from where she hid, so she craned to listen as Snape opened the door; she heard the slight rattle of the door chain, and then the professor’s voice.

“Hello. Is something the matter?”

“Hello. We are investigating a complaint about this address. Have you seen this girl today?” a rather haughty-sounding woman’s voice said.

There was quiet for a moment. “No,” said Snape finally.

“I see,” the woman said, not disguising her disbelief. “Would you be willing to submit to a search of your person and the premises?”

“No, I would not,” said Snape coldly. “What is this about? I would like to see some identification.” There was a pause; Hermione strained to hear. She put her eye up to the gap between the door and the jamb and could just see the woman’s arm past Snape’s frame in the doorway as she flipped open a little leather wallet and held it out for him to see.

“What’s the matter, Professor? Do you have something to hide?” the woman asked finally in an overly innocent, almost mocking tone, the arm and the ID it held disappearing from view.

“I repeat: What is this about?” Hermione recognized that tone; it was the same one he used in class on students who mixed up the directions during lab and wasted chemicals.

“We will be speaking to you again, Professor. Soon.” Hermione heard footsteps walking away; Snape closed the door firmly and relocked it.

“That was very strange,” she said, stepping out of the dark bedroom.

“Exceedingly so,” he replied, walking past her into the room she had just left. He flipped the light switch and began opening drawers and throwing things quickly into an overnight bag.

“Are you going somewhere?” she asked as he groped along the underside of his bed table and pulled free an envelope taped there; watching as he thumbed through it quickly, she saw it was crammed with twenty and fifty pound notes.

“That woman is going to return. I don’t intend to be here when she does,” he replied. “Get out, Granger, I need to change.”

Hermione went into the sitting room and waited; Snape emerged a few moments later fully dressed in his customary teaching attire, though she noticed he had omitted the tie.

“Who was she? She asked you if you’d seen someone?” Hermione asked as he shut the bedroom door behind him and slung the overnight bag he had packed over one shoulder.

“She claimed to be a police inspector and showed me a picture of you. I’d say it’s come to someone’s attention that we haven’t been sufficiently distracted from trying to discover what is happening to us.”

“But we can’t evade the police!”

He raised an eyebrow. “ _We_ are not going to evade the police. _I_ am going to evade them; _you_ are going to go back home and stay with your parents. This has become too dangerous for you to be involved in any longer.”

“What? You’re joking! You can’t go without me, I’m in this just as deeply as you are!” Hermione protested hotly, jumping to her feet.

“I’m not known for my sense of humor, Miss Granger,” Snape said, taking her by the shoulder and steering her towards the door. “Now go home. I’ll contact you if I find out anything more.”

“And what am I supposed to do? Help my parents pack for bloody Australia?”

“Language, Miss Granger. Why not? I hear the weather’s nice there this time of year,” he said, shrugging into his coat and winding his scarf around his neck. “Stop arguing,” he said when she opened her mouth again. “I have no desire to be saddled with a teenage girl while I’m getting to the bottom of this mystery. You will only be in my way.”

Hermione closed her mouth and allowed Snape to shove her out the door before him. She ought to be used to his coldness and cruelness after six years of being exposed to it, she thought, yet she was still more stung by his words than she would have expected to be. She followed him quietly down the stairs, thinking hard.

At the bottom of the stairs, Snape gave her a terse nod of farewell and turned his back on her, heading to his car; impulsively she grabbed his arm. He turned, scowling.

“Be careful, sir,” she said softly. He blinked at her, then inclined his head.

“Try not to do anything foolish, Miss Granger,” he replied. Without the usual bite in his tone, it sounded almost kind—coming from Snape, anyway.

Hermione watched him pull out of the car park and drive away. She stood in front of the empty space his car had occupied for a long moment, the cold breeze whipping her hair into her eyes and making them water.

She would be damned if she was going to go home and wait like a good little girl, she thought fiercely. She’d agreed to do things his way while they were doing them together, but now that he was leaving her out, she saw no reason she had to do as he said; he wasn’t even her professor anymore, technically speaking.

But what was she going to do? Try to follow him? Would her feet lead her in the right direction as they had earlier that morning? She wasn’t sure, but her intuition was telling her strongly that home was the wrong direction to go.

She had begun walking as she thought, and now found herself at the street. Snape had turned left. On the right lay the way towards home; directly ahead, on the other side of the street, was a street she was unfamiliar with. The sign identified it as Icelus Lane. Hermione closed her eyes and turned slowly in place a few times. When she opened her eyes, slightly dizzy, she saw that the unfamiliar street was again directly in front of her. Shrugging, she glanced both ways, then crossed the street and began walking north, down Icelus Lane.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

 

            Hermione might not have been able to put her finger on what made her choose to head down Icelus Lane, but she knew one thing was certain: this street was creepy.

            The street was lined with houses on both sides, but they were all silent, their windows dark or else blinded with curtains. The entire street looked totally deserted; not even any cars went by as Hermione passed slowly down the sidewalk, looking about with unease.

            It was very quiet. Hermione felt her arms break out into gooseflesh and rubbed them nervously through her layers.

            She peered at the closer houses on her left as she passed, but she could see no sign of life in any of them. It had been an overcast morning, but now the sky seemed even darker, and the wind had picked up, as if a storm was brewing. A sheaf of newspaper blew past her in the street with a loud rustle, making her jump.

            This street was _very_ creepy.

            Hermione stopped suddenly. Ahead, she could see that the street ended in a cul-de-sac; there was a sign posted that read:

ICELUS LANE

NO OUTLET

            Hermione stared at the street sign with wide eyes. There was something about that name that was familiar, niggling at the back of her mind. What did that word mean, anyway? Icelus.

            Icelus.

            Why couldn't she remember? She was sure she knew that word, had seen it or read it somewhere before. It felt important, but the memory slipped out of her grasp and was lost. Hermione sighed in frustration, pushing her hair back out of her eyes.

            Hermione had been unsettled by the bizarre turn her life had taken ever since waking up that morning to her parents packing up house. Now she was beginning to feel truly afraid. Her arms stood out in goosebumps, and she found herself licking her dry lips with her equally dry tongue.

            A movement caught her eye from one of the closer houses to her left; something moved in the window. Hermione looked, and shrieked aloud.

            There was a face in that window. But it was no normal face.

            It was a clown.

            The clown winked at her, to Hermione's horror; its lips stretched wide in a grin, and she shrieked again when she saw that its teeth were sharp, bloody points. The red makeup around its mouth, she realized suddenly, was not makeup at all.

            Then the curtains twitched again, and the face was gone.

            Hermione backed away rapidly, off the sidewalk and into the street.

            There was a sound behind her, like a quiet footfall. Hermione whirled, her heart leaping into her throat. She peered down the street behind her with wide eyes.

            There was no one there.

            Slowly, she turned back to the cul-de-sac, looking around with wide eyes. She could feel all the hair on her arms and neck raising to stand on end. Her heart raced. She felt like a rabbit who has seen the hawk's shadow sweeping towards her across the field.

            Her wide eyes fell on the street sign, and she froze. The words had changed. The sign now read:

ICELUS LANE

DEAD END

            Hermione gaped at the black letters. That was impossible. Signs could not change when one was not looking.

            Could they?

            She must have remembered it wrongly. That was all.

            At any rate, Hermione decided that the sooner she left this street, the happier she would be. She turned towards the street's entrance, only to stop still in her tracks again.

            A woman was standing in the middle of the lane, arms outstretched to either side as if in welcome. Hermione nearly screamed. The woman looked absolutely deranged. Her hair stood out in snarls from her head, and the black pantsuit and white blouse she wore were torn and blood-stained.

            And she was holding a knife.

 

**********************************

 

 

            “Good lord, they let you wear your hair like that and be a police inspector?” Severus drawled, closing the office door behind him with a snap.

            The man sitting at the desk before him looked up sharply, but the retort he was about to utter died on his lips; his shock was quickly replaced by a surprisingly genuine-seeming pleasure.

            “Severus!” he said, tossing his blond, almost white hair, styled in an extremely long, sleek plait, over his shoulder and standing in one smooth, graceful motion. They clasped one another’s left forearms, and the man pulled Severus into a brother’s embrace.

            “You look as though you are doing well for yourself, Lucius,” Snape remarked, taking in his friend’s expensive bespoke suit and the very fine gold wristwatch that peeked out from his crisply starched cuff.

            “And you look as if you are not,” said Chief Inspector Malfoy, looking Snape up and down with his lips curled in a smug smirk. “Tell me, when are you going to give up scraping by as a schoolteacher and use the considerable talents you have at your disposal?”

            “When you finally cut your hair and stop wearing that appalling cologne,” he muttered under his breath, scowling, but without much heat. Lucius chuckled.

            “Not that I’m not pleased to see you, old friend, but can I ask what brings you here? Somehow I don’t think it’s just to catch up with a school chum,” said Lucius shrewdly, gesturing for him to sit and taking his own seat once more.

            “You always were very perceptive,” Snape said silkily, accepting the narrow wooden chair the inspector offered him. “As a matter of fact, I do need a favor.”

            “Of course. What did you do, get a parking ticket? Or a drunk and disorderly charge, perhaps?”

            “As always, Lucius, your wit is sparkling. No, I’m afraid the predicament I find myself in is much more…unusual,” said Snape delicately.

“What sort of unusual are we talking here?”

Snape proceeded to give him a heavily edited run-down of the events of the last two days, leaving out a majority of the weird and inexplicable bits; still, Lucius’s eyebrows had risen quite high by the time he finished.

“Well, well, Severus. What have you gotten yourself into?” Lucius said quietly, his eyes glittering. Severus scowled at his obvious amusement.

“I’m hoping perhaps you can help me work that out,” he continued. “I was visited just before coming here by a woman who identified herself as a police inspector. I was wondering if you could tell me if there is an open investigation involving me, and what the nature of it is, perhaps.”

“I can’t tell you anything about an open investigation, not if I’d like to continue being Chief Inspector.” Lucius looked at him for a long moment and sighed. “But I suppose I could look into it. Did you get this inspector’s name, by any chance?”

“The ID she showed me said A. Longbottom.”

Lucius gave a little jerk. “What did this woman look like?” he asked sharply. Severus raised an eyebrow.

“Long dark hair. Strong jaw. Hooded eyes. Quite good looking, very haughty type.”

At his description, Lucius seemed to grow more pale, if such a thing was possible, and he immediately dropped his languid pose. He searched rapidly through a stack of papers on his desk and plucked a photo from their midst, which he held up for Snape to see. He recognized her immediately.

“Who is she?”

“Her name is Bellatrix Black. She is wanted in connection with a string of killings committed by Tom Riddle.”

“The serial killer that’s all over the telly?” Severus asked, bewildered.

Lucius nodded, dropping the photo back onto his desk. “We think she might be a disciple of his. There’s evidence implicating her in several of the murders, though it’s only circumstantial. Inspector Longbottom was tailing her in preparation to bring her in for questioning when she went missing, and Black dropped off the face of the earth also right around the same time. We just released a statement to the press about it this morning, warning people to stay away from her and notify the police immediately. She’s thought to be armed and very dangerous.”

Severus cursed inwardly. He had thought that he was the one in the woman’s crosshairs and had sent the girl home to keep her out of harm’s way; but what if the woman had not been interested in him at all, but in Granger? He remembered the profile described by the news of the people Riddle had murdered; most of them had been young, average-looking brunette women between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five. Granger fit that description too well for comfort.

“I must go,” he said, standing abruptly.

Lucius stood as well. “Take care, Severus. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he said in a deceptively light tone. Severus hardly heard him; he was already dashing out the door.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

 

Severus drove as fast as his decrepit car could go, his knuckles white around the steering wheel, and tried not to think. He had raced from the police station to Hermione's townhouse, but the windows had all been dark and he had buzzed the bell again and again with no response.

Now he was driving the route between her home and his flat, trying not to imagine where Hermione might be if he did not find her soon.

His block of flats loomed on the left. Severus prepared to turn left, but hesitated.

Had that little lane always been there across from the flats? He did not remember having seen it before. He peered up the street through his foggy passenger window.

Severus threw the car into park, heedless of the grating groan the engine made. He scrambled out of the car, not even bothering to shut off the engine.

There were two women up the lane, and one of them was advancing on the other in what could only be described as a predatory stalk. She had a knife in her hand.

Severus sprinted up the lane as quickly and as quietly as he could, hoping to surprise the woman before she attacked.

He was not at all sure that he would make it in time.

 

**********************************

 

Despite the deadly situation she suddenly faced, Hermione found her eyes straying again to the street sign, visible just past the woman’s shoulder. It was maddening, like an itch in the middle of her brain, impossible to scratch.

Then her eyes were drawn to another movement further down the lane. Her heart leapt when she recognized Severus sprinting towards them, surprisingly fast and light on his feet. She felt an almost giddy spike of relief. At least she was not alone in this nightmare.

Suddenly the memory was there, and she was able to grasp it at last.

Hermione realized with a jolt several things at once, which were really all one thing. Icelus, the name of one of the spirits the Greeks believed sent dreams to humans; the inexplicable, frightening things she had seen on this street; the strange things that had been happening to them; even the strange behaviour of her parents and Harry and Ron. The reason this woman was so familiar to her, and so frightening, as well. In a flash of insight, she saw it all clearly. It was just like a—

The pain flared in her head again, bright and glassy, but this time she clenched her teeth and held onto the thought grimly, before the pain could scatter it or drive it away.

Like a dream—or a nightmare.

None of this was real.

She met the woman’s eye again. The woman faltered; the long knife she brandished wavered and she took a step back in surprise.

Severus skidded to a halt, chest heaving, about six feet away; he glanced at Granger from the corner of his eye, not wanting to take them off the madwoman, and was surprised to see that the girl’s face nearly glowed with triumph.

“Who cares for _you_?” she cried, and actually _stepped closer_ to the madwoman. Her voice rang out clear and loud in the silent street. To his surprise, the madwoman actually quailed, backing up further. Granger’s eyes met Severus’s, fierce and lit with understanding.

“It’s not real! Not her, not any of it! Do you see it, sir?”

He opened his mouth to snarl at her, to tell her to _get back,_ for fuck’s sake. But as he looked into her eyes, it was as if her understanding leapt straight out of her mind and into his, like a beam of light. The words died on his lips and he reeled backwards a step, stunned and incredulous.

Suddenly, the woman exploded right before them into a burst of red. For a moment Snape thought it was gore and flinched; then he realized that the red he saw was not blood at all.

_Paper?_

No, he realized, numb with disbelief, as red-and-white rectangles fluttered to the pavement. Playing cards.

The woman had turned into a pack—or perhaps two?—of red-backed playing cards.

He prodded with the toe of his shoe at the little drift of cards now scattered before them, trying to wrap his mind around what he had just seen.

The woman had actually, somehow, been transformed into playing cards, gun and all. There was not a trace of her left. Slowly he raised his eyes from the pavement and looked at Hermione with an unreadable expression.

“You did this.”

She nodded, looking at him blankly. His eyes bored into hers; she had the weird sensation of falling into them, of becoming enthralled.

“How?”

She stared at something past his head, mouth open slightly. Feeling a tingle of foreboding, Snape turned around. In the distance, buildings appeared to be bursting into little fragments, though he could hear no sound of explosions, nor see any fire or smoke.

“Nothing but a pack of cards,” Hermione said faintly. He turned to her, and she sensed his bewilderment, tinted with fear. She took his hand without thinking. He nearly jerked it away in surprise, but the touch of her hand was so unexpectedly soothing that he was reluctant to break the contact.

“Don’t be afraid,” she murmured, squeezing his hand gently, still staring into his eyes.

In the quiet, they were able to hear a faint rushing sound in the distance; it grew closer and swelled into a roar. A flood of playing cards swept around the corner ahead and flowed toward them in a red-and-white tide of pasteboard, a drift that went over their feet and reached their ankles.

“What’s happening?” he asked her, gripping her hand almost painfully tightly in return.

“I think…we are waking up.”

The drift of cards was now up to their calves, and steadily rising. He fought the panic rising within him and ruthlessly squashed it.

“What are you talking about, Granger?” he barked, giving her arm a little shake.

“Don’t you see, sir? This isn’t real! None of it is! This whole world is a dream, and we’ve been trapped in it!”

He stared at her. His first impulse was to emphatically deny, but her certainty was so strong, it dissolved his own doubt. And how else could he explain what he had just seen?

“And you say we’re waking up?” He looked down at the cards, now above his knees.

“We would be already, but you’re fighting it, I think.”

He shook his head, jerkily. She looked at him thoughtfully.

“Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll count to three, and then we’ll both fall backwards into the cards.” 

“And what do you suppose will happen then, Granger? Shall I first click my heels three times and say, ‘There’s no place like home?’”

She shrugged. “If you like. I think anything will work, so long as you believe that it will. But we seem to have a time limit,” she remarked, glancing down at the cards as well.

He looked at her again. Her face was calm, but he could almost see her urge to gnaw at her lip, barely held in check.

“On three,” he said abruptly, and began counting. “One.”

She joined him. “Two.”

“Three.”

They fell backwards at the same moment, still holding hands. The cards gave way beneath them and they continued to fall, long past the point that they should have hit the ground; it seemed to have disappeared out from under them.

The light rapidly faded to a pinprick above them as they plunged into utter darkness. Strangely, Severus did not feel afraid; though he could not see her, he could feel Hermione’s small, warm hand within his own.

They seemed to fall for a very long time; so long a time, in fact, that Severus began to feel his eyelids grow heavy. Absurd it might be, but the dark and the quiet of their descent was restful and calming all the same. Before he quite knew what was happening, Severus had fallen asleep.


End file.
